


Broken Pieces

by JuweWright



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, Fluff and Angst, Post-Hogwarts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-26
Updated: 2016-09-26
Packaged: 2018-08-17 12:30:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,481
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8144125
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JuweWright/pseuds/JuweWright
Summary: Draco and Hermione meet years after their breakup. Really just a ficlet.





	

When Draco opened the door, it was like someone twisted a knife inside her breast. She remembered the weeks after the breakup, a breakup that had not been caused by one of them stopping to love the other, not by one of them falling for someone else. It had been circumstances, things that were out of their control that had slowly worn them out and finally torn them apart. In the first weeks, the first months after they had mutually decided it was “better this way”, she remembered waking up every morning and for a second wondering whether it still hurt, whether the pain was still there, whether it still felt as if her heart was slowly pressed together by iron fingers until it bled. Usually it had taken her only the blink of an eye before it had hit her again, that, yes, it was still hurting. It had been almost unbearable for a while, then had become a dull ache, familiar, omnipresent, a part of who she was, a part of her life.

She had believed that the years had slowly washed it out, made it fade away. Time heals all wounds, her mother had told her when she was a child. Time heals everything. But now, standing on the threshold to Draco Malfoy’s home, she knew that time did bugger all. It had been years since their last meeting, an agonizing moment at an official ball where they had bumped into each other in front of the toilets and spent agonizing minutes trying to manage some small talk until he had just turned without an explanation and stormed off. They could not do small talk. There had never been room for that in their relationship.

They had both made their way through life. Found other people to accompany them. Damned, Draco had even married and him and Astoria were like the perfect couple. When Scorpius had been born, The Daily Prophet had run a feature about the family. It had been sweet enough to give you a tooth ache. It had been sweet enough for Hermione to have a moment of complete control-loss in which she both downed half a bottle of firewhisky in one go and threw the newspaper into the fire place. George had been impressed by her ability to cope with the firewhisky but less impressed by what the memory of Draco Malfoy still did to her. And that had been the end of her five years dating George Weasley.

Afterwards she had done a lot to avoid Draco. She had not gone to parties, she had not gone to their Hogwarts anniversary because she feared he might be there even though he never graduated officially. She had done everything to get him out of her mind, turn these memories into shadows, preferably shadows that did not haunt her every night in her dreams.

And now she had been thrown into his way again. By chance and the fact that Rose had become friends with Scorpius and that she did not want to boss her child about if it came to whom to be friends with and whom not to be friends with. Anyways. Scorpius was all right. He just looked way too much like his father and thus made her uncomfortable when he was around. His manners and his character were so different from Draco’s though, that she was happy to talk to him as soon as he had been there for five minutes and had started talking. She knew that Draco had made a point out of not being at home when she picked Rose up from her regular visits to the Manor. She also knew that Astoria was at the hospital. Had been there for a week now. She had known that she would meet Draco today, and yet she was totally unprepared.

“Good evening, Granger”, he said nodding curtly.

His mouth twitched slightly, as if he had tasted something bitter.

“Come in for a minute, will you. I already shouted for the kids, but they are unavoidably detained in the backyard until Rose has caught that damned Snitch, that’s her words not mine.”

He opened the door wide to let her step over the threshold.

It had been hard to walk into the Manor the first time she had come here. The memories of Bellatrix Lestrange torturing her, the pain of the Cruciatus curse. If she had known back then how very much worse pain existed on this planet which was neither illegal nor had anything to do with magic…

Back then, Draco had noticed her discomfort, taken her hand, smiled, and had slowly walked in before her, his back turned to the hall, his eyes never losing hers. They had been each others saviour before they had become each others curse.

He led her into the living room and gestured towards the sofa.

“Take a seat. I had the elf make tea, if you want some. Milk and sugar. I thought it was a milk and sugar occasion.”

He managed a half-smile. He knew her so well, knew that Hermione Granger usually took her tea with milk only, but resorted to sugar when she felt stressed. For a while, everything was silence, until the house elf brought a tea tray with two steaming mugs on it. Mugs. Both of them hated the tiny cups that sophisticated folk were supposed to drink their tea out of. Hermione watched Draco spoon some sugar into his brew.

“Sugar occasion for you as well?,” she asked, sipping from her mug.

He shrugged, then sighed and sat down in the arm chair next to her.

“I won’t even try to pretend it’s not,” he said. “If anyone in this earth ever knew me inside out, it’s you. If anyone could ever tell when I was lying just by watching my hands, it’s you. If anyone ever knew my heart, it’s you.”

She wanted to stop him. He’d twist the knife again and they’d both be hurting, they’d both be bleeding again. Even after all these years they probably would not be able to stay alive through another fatal blow. But he shook his head.

“Listen, Granger. I think we made a mistake. I remember we both thought we made a mistake by getting together, because we are the worst combination ever. We both wake up screaming at night. We both are haunted by ghosts we will never get rid of. And it seemed like… we were two broken pieces that kind of fit together for a bit, but we only fit together because we were broken.”

That had been her own words. The exact words she had used during that long scene that had ended with her walking out of the Manor in tears, only getting her wits together to apparate home after she had walked for about ten miles.

“I think we did a lot to get whole again. We tried to find other people, that were less broken. Even though, if we are honest, it seems like there is nobody in our generation who has stayed completely intact after the war.”

He drank some of his, tea, seemed to be suddenly very interested in the pattern on the cup, inhaled, exhaled, then steadied himself and looked into her eyes again.

“I think we have both realized something. I know I have. And you must have, too. I can feel it. I can sense it. I think, Granger, that if everyone is broken and two broken pieces fit together the way we did, perhaps, they should have stayed together and tried to be whole together instead of looking for someone else to fix them somehow.”

Get up, Hermione heard a tiny voice in her head, Get up and leave! You can still go! Just go!

But she remained frozen in her seat and when she finally spoke, it was only a whisper.

“Astoria?”

“She knows. She has known for a long time. She knows I have tried and failed. She knows I love her. As much as I can love anyone but you. I … I have been waiting to talk to you, but I was afraid what it would mean. She actually made me stay here today. She is a hell of a woman. Told me that she could not stand it any more. That she knew what was between you and me and that she had always hoped she could get close to that. But she never could.”

“Nor could Ron,” Hermione heard herself murmur, “nor could George.”

A mug fell to the floor, spilling its contents. For a split second they stood in the middle of the Manor drawing room, only centimeters between them, that seemed like both miles and decades. And then Hermione lifted a trembling hand to find Draco’s slender fingers and pull him into their first embrace for years.


End file.
